Richard Freeman and the intrepid team from the Centre for Fortean Zooology (CFZ) in the United Kingdom, have located an actual eyewitness who says that he has seen the mythic beast known as the Ninki-nanka of The Gambia in west Africa.

The CFZ crew were able to locate a ranger employed by the Kiang West National Park who claims to have see the creature some three years ago. The location of the sighting has not been disclosed, but the witness is said to have seen animal allegedly a whopping 50 metres long and a metre wide. The witness claims to have observed the creature for an hour before he suddenly took ill.

When shown various illustrations of animals and reptiles, the ranger stated that he believes the head of a Chinese dragon best fits that of the Ninki-nanka.

This is par for the course for alleged witnesses of the Ninki-naka to take ill and then die. The ranger puts his survival down to a herbal potion which was administered to him by Muslim healer.

I have huge problems with a creature measuring 50 metres in length. That is half the length of your average football field and I find it extraordinary that a creature this large does not leave any traces unless of course, it is aquatic in nature.

To add to this already fascinating tale, the CFZ team may, or as the case might be, may not have in their possession a supposed scale from the horse-headed, mirror-scaled creature with the crest on its head. It seems the so-called “scale” may really just be a piece of celluloid film.

This has not discouraged Freeman who states: “We haven’t discounted the possibility that there is a flesh and blood Ninki-nanka in the swamps of West Africa, it’s just at the moment the evidence is pointing to something more folkloric.”

The CFZ expedition is also looking for the remains of a sea creature which was discovered by Owen Burnham on beach in The Gambia. There has been now word that we know of that they have found the animal said to bear an uncanny resemblance to a plesiosaur.

About John KirkOne of the founders of the BCSCC, John Kirk has enjoyed a varied and exciting career path. Both a print and broadcast journalist, John Kirk has in recent years been at the forefront of much of the BCSCC’s expeditions, investigations and publishing. John has been particularly interested in the phenomenon of unknown aquatic cryptids around the world and is the author of In the Domain of the Lake Monsters (Key Porter Books, 1998).
In addition to his interest in freshwater cryptids, John has been keenly interested in investigating the possible existence of sasquatch and other bipedal hominids of the world, and in particular, the Yeren of China. John is also chairman of the Crypto Safari organization, which specializes in sending teams of investigators to remote parts of the world to search for animals as yet unidentified by science. John travelled with a Crypto Safari team to Cameroon and northern Republic of Congo to interview witnesses among the Baka pygmies and Bantu bushmen who have sighted a large unknown animal that bears more than a superficial resemblance to a dinosaur.
Since 1996, John Kirk has been editor and publisher of the BCSCC Quarterly which is the flagship publication of the BCSCC. In demand at conferences, seminars, lectures and on television and radio programs, John has spoken all over North America and has appeared in programs on NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, TLC, Discovery, CBC, CTV and the BBC.
In his personal life John spends much time studying the histories of Scottish Clans and is himself the president of the Clan Kirk Society. John is also an avid soccer enthusiast and player.

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Coooooool! I would love to see this thing. A dragon! and yes, I do believe that dragons do breathe fire. There are so many different ways that this could work. Did the witness say how far he was from the Ninki-nanka? Maybe it has, instead of fire, some sort of gassing system that it kills with and then able to just eat the corpse. I hope they find something.

I’m glad that the search continues and there are still people to carry out such an expedition so enthusiastically. I sincerely hope they find some evidence and try to safely determine why so many witnesses have died. I assume a post mortem is not an option. Is it possible that this could be some new mutated species of amphibious reptile? Perhaps, like the giant squid and it’s overpowering stench of ammonia, this cryptid’s pheremones or natural odor have a debilitating effect on humans. Have animal deaths been reported? If so, this may be some evidence of a re-organization of the natural order. Perhaps this cryptid and others like it are meant to represent an oncoming introduction of new species destined to replace us and more common animals? It would be a very natural occurence in the grand scheme of things, new species come along and older ones are edged out. Think about it, I could be wrong, but it’s just a theory.

I doubt one does “mistake” celluloid for a scale (which is why the article notes they feel it is probably just celluloid film), but it wouldn’t stop someone from trying to “sell” or otherwise profit from fake scales that they think they can fool an investigator or other interested person with (see the recent “Hand of Unknown Origin” posts for an example).

My favorite cryto subject sea serpents and supposed dinosaur species.GOOD LUCK to the research team. 50 feet in length very possible these jungles hold many secrets to man. We need to hope we see good photo graphs to prove the findings of the dragon and im hoping once and for all that PLESIOSAURS may still live among us. IT would be great to find these dinosaur species may be still here.

there are accounts of “dragons” in England back in the umpteen hundreds that were supposedly slain by knights or scared off the townsfolk and it was sometimes said that these dragons had a poisonous stench or that people who came into contact with them got sick…(I know I am not complete in describing what I read, but I do not have the books onhand…). I do not totally discount the sickness thing…it could be crap, but it could be that certain critters do exude a toxic substance to those who get too close…poison dart frogs being one example…

Could this thing be a descendant of SuperCroc Sarcosuchus, that has developed the ability to spray the area with specific toxins if it feels threatened. It is also odd that the one guy had a specific herbal antidote.